HR&A Participates in Greater Greener 2015 Conference

HR&A is proud to participate in the Greater & Greener 2015: Innovative Parks and Vibrant Cities Conference in San Francisco, California. The annual conference brings together more than 1,000 park leaders, planners, design professionals, and urban park advocates from around the world to discuss urban park issues from health, public education, livability and social cohesion, to economic development and urban resilience.

HR&A Partner, Candace Damon, will be participating on a panel titled Collecting Data, Informing Decisions on Monday April 13th. This panel will focus on how technology is serving socially and environmentally vulnerable communities. Candace will highlight our recent work with the Open Society Foundation on Talking Transition in NYC and in Washington D.C. where we transformed the typically insular, closed-door process that occurs between Election Day and Inauguration Day into an opportunity for broad civic discourse. She will also discuss our project for the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California. For the City of Santa Monica, we helped design and develop a new online public engagement tool that solicits input from citizens and stakeholders to reimagine the future of the Civic Auditorium and its site through a user-friendly, online interface.

HR&A Director, Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan, will participate on a panel titled Earning Income with the Entrepreneurial Park on Tuesday April 14th, where she will discuss strategies for creating financially sustainable parks that not only generate revenue, but also contribute to the economic health of their communities. Elissa will highlight recent work on Hance Park in Phoenix, for the Green Line Parks and Commons Initiative in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and on Shelby Farms Park in Memphis.

HR&A is a strong supporter of the Greater & Greener Conference and the City Parks Alliance.